Don't Fall off the Edge
by poptropican
Summary: Leo, Raph, Donnie, and Mikey each going off into their own little worlds, some working on secret projects, when a jolt jerks them out of their respective ruts and back into the world of constant change, be it good or bad. -Rated for future violence and language.
1. Donnie and Raph

**This chapter will be pretty much a character study, written mainly to solidify the characters in my mind. Nothing of chronological importance happens in this chapter, it just delves into the minds of the guys. **

_***…***_** = Thoughts (it's in italics too) **

**Donatello and Raphael **

**Donatello**

As I twist the last wire on my latest repair project, my mind wanders to my big project—the weapons room. The weapons room will store some of the more… controversial weapons, such as hand grenades and Triceraton blasters. Because of the nature of the room, it is to remain my little secret project until we really need it, I will only unveil it then. My main obstacles to overcome as far as secrecy are Master Splinter and Leonardo. Master Splinter does not approve of guns and most other weapons of the sort, and because Leo emulates him in nearly every way he can find, he harbors a strong dislike for them as well. If they were to find out, they would not allow me to fill it with such weapons. If I told Mikey, he would either not be able to keep his mouth shut about it or use it as blackmail. Raph, on the other hand, would have no problem keeping it a secret, but he would badger me with requests to 'train' with all the cool new gadgets, and would goad Mikey into bugging me into oblivion about it. So I must therefore work alone on my little 'pet-project'. However my time to work on it is severely limited due to the amount of work that is put onto me by my brothers and the general safekeeping of the family. The lair depends on my systems to warn us of intruders and keep them out, so if there is a failure in the systems, we are leaving out backs undefended until I fix it. There is no one else who can help me besides April, and she is getting busy with her shop, so I have to do everything solo. This being so, it has become increasingly difficult to find time to work on it.

I put the remote back together and sigh at my forthcoming doom at the hands of overwork. I take a deep breath and yell, "Mikey! The remote's finished!" I hear a clatter and the patter of light footsteps nearing my laboratory door. A mound of fidgety green is suddenly beside me, bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation.

He looked at me with wide, hopeful, and teasing eyes, "Is it really fixed Donnie? Really Really?!"

I sigh at his antics and nod. "This time it should be harder to destroy…" He makes to grab it, but I snatch it back, "Just don't try and hit Raph with it again, ok? I don't think it could survive another aerial battle." I toss it to him with a playful grin and shoo him from my lab.

_*Finally, some downtime.* _I go into the depths of my computer files and pull up my plans for 'Code Boom' (my codename for the weapons room). I have several encryption codes placed on the files because Leo has been learning a bit of hacking so he isn't so reliant on me to do it for him. I most certainly do not want him finding the plans. If he does, he'll either force me to throw them out or expect to use the room whenever their hearts desire. _*However, this could just be my pessimistic side getting to me. It has been known to happen before…*_ I scan the file, checking for any previously overlooked errors in my schematics. I see none. My mind now turns to the crucial point of where to do the actual construction of it. The room was to be built inside of an armored car and made to look like a room. This way, the weapons are portable and able to be taken on missions with us if the need calls for them. _*There aren't many places to choose from though, everyone has already pretty much claimed all the possible areas as 'theirs', so it's not like I can just go in there and say 'Hey! I need this spot for a secret project you can't know about, so nobody can come in here for a few months. We're good! Great! Now get going!' I have to be stealthy…* _Just when I am about to do an internet search for ideas, Leo calls for a patrol. I groan and put up all the locks on my tech and the lair. _*It's like he knows __exactly__ when I'm about to do something important.* _I grab my bo staff, and go into the main room.

(={"''}=)

**Raphael **

Leo calls for a patrol and I do a compulsory check of the edge on my sais. I am going to have to sharpen them when we get back, but they're fine for this. I wipe the sweat off my face with a rag and toss it into the soon to be mountainous pile. I go and wait next to Donnie.

. Everyone says that I am brash and that I do not notice anything around me, but this is not the case. In reality, I notice a good deal more than I show. I simply do not react to what I see in the same way that everyone else in the world seems to. Everyone always thinks that if they go out and help a person directly, with their knowledge of it, then the person will learn to look out for themselves rather than looking to help for such things. Someone's strength lies what he can accomplish on his own, rather than what you can do with someone to watch your back. Alone, it is possible to protect others from being hurt. Personally, I would rather myself getting hurt than Master Splinter or my brothers. This is why I am the first to throw a punch in fights.

It's different when I'm fighting with Leo, Mikey, or Don though. We have trained together our entire lives, so we know exactly where each other's limits are. I know exactly how much Leo can take in a fight, and he knows the same for me. After having fought mainly against each other for most of our lives (as we only started going topside regularly a few years ago), it has become like second nature to us to hold back from these limits, however we can go as close as we like to those limits. We have to push the boundaries of our limits, though. Because we all know each other's weaknesses, we tend to target those weaknesses, forcing the other person to learn to cover them. Out of my brothers, I fight with Leo the most. At this point, I know his limits the best, and I like to push those limits to get the best fight out of him. He thinks that he is the end all be all of us all, second only to Master Splinter. He just ticks me off whenever he makes a demand. Even him ordering us to run a patrol irks me. I would have run one anyway, with or without them, but him demanding one out of us irks me to no end.

Out of my brothers, I am least close to Donnie. The funny thing about that is that we are very similar if you take away his brains and level-headedness. Although he may not seem like it a lot of the time, Don is a cave monster. He holes himself up in his lab all day doing all his techie stuff, avoiding everybody, and lives off of coffee. I am becoming convinced that he injects nutrients into his coffee so he can stay in there longer. Whenever he unveils a new gadget and Mikey and Leo gather around him in their excitement, he gets a bit fidgety. I think that they see it as him being excited too, but I have taught myself to have a sixth sense about fear. It's how I get people angry when I'm bored, I find what they hate most, and poke fun at it. His pulse also quickens, but he gets that under control quickly, as well as his breathing. Because of this, I hang back a bit during these things, and listen to his explanation. The biggest obstacle between me and him is our methods of attack. He stays back and thinks about the best course of action, while I let my body react to what is around me. We both go about life using these styles, and because of that we will be forever blocked from one another.

We are all gathered by the door to the sewers. We leave and head for the nearest manhole. When we get close, Mikey, being his usual idiotic self, runs forward yelling, "Me first! Me first!" but upon reaching it, he stops and puts on a slippery grin. The rest of us catch up with him, and he says, "Well, I forgot my manners…" he does this cheesy little bow, "Ladies first, Raphie dear."

I smack him upside the head, "Oh no deah', after ya'" my brothers roll their eyes at me and we go topside.


	2. Leo and Mikey

11-12-12

**Character study and such continued. **

**In case of confusion, it is rated for what I have planned for the future. And the reason its taking so long to upload stuff I already have written (albeit on a pad of paper) is that I am adding more stuff to it as well as transcribing from my legal pad with everything on it (more or less word for word).**

**Leonardo and Michelangelo**

**Leonardo**

The night caresses me as I slink though the shadows, disregarded as a trick of the light. Our four forms flit across the rafters and we comb the city in search baddies. It has been a fairly quiet night, with very few infractions to the law. Die to this, our patrol was quickly coming to an end and turning more into a game between Mikey and Raph. They are racing to the nearest water tower, right now Mikey is winning because he is smaller, but Raph is using his superior strength to push himself faster. Donnie and I follow at a more reasonable pace. Mikey wins the race as expected (he is the fastest of us and wins about 80% of the races).

He is our resident game geek, and seems to have figured out how to wriggle a win out of any game without cheating. As far as I know, he has never pulled any cheat codes or anything, not wanting to 'anger the gods of games' by cheating. Yet he has beaten every game he has ever gotten, and memorized strategies to every single one of them (including board games monopoly anyone) without the aid of the internet. He will obsess over something and master it, largely ignoring much of what we ask of him. Because of this, we have to be careful when we get him something. He perks up immediately whenever we get a new game. He could be in his room asleep (I hear him snoring), and I open up the game to get a head start on it. But just when I turn on the game console, He rushes down and hoards the game for the next three days while he masters it.

Mikey is a complete closet strategist. In order to beat some of these games, he has to have some serious strategy. I know, I've tried playing them and none of my plans worked. I've seen Mikey pull out a game and go on a marathon and beat the game only losing two lives. Nearly every plan worked, and each was more complex than I would have thought of for the situation. He uses some of the most unconventional methods I have ever heard of. This is the main reason why he is so dangerous in a serious fight—there is no way to really predict his movements. He pulls information from his surroundings and puts it together into this huge, roundabout plan that gets the job done in an unpredictable method, albeit usually rather long. My style of strategy is generally much more to the point, making it much more predictable, but also more foolproof. His way brings you around the enemy, leaving them still operational but you are unharmed and it takes longer, my way brings you right to the action in a much more concise manner, taking out enemies along the way in exchange for blows to yourself.

I think that Mikey reveals his unconventional mindset primarily through his art. He (in addition to being a brilliant strategist) is the best artist in the family. The subjects of his drawings vary greatly, however me, Donatello, Raphael, Master Splinter, Casey, and April almost never appear. However when we do appear, it is particularly gruesome. Generally, his subject matter tends to stay within the realm of death. The victims lie sprawled across the cement, blood pooling around them, bodies mangled and twisted. Their faces are captured in a state of emptiness, fear, pain, and the occasional sadistic happiness. They are frozen forever in mid scream in the moments before their, usually untimely, death. The most terrifying part of it all is that this all comes from the mind of our Michelangelo. Our personal court fool, and the most innocent of us all created these works of death, pain, and terror. With each of his drawings, they become more and more lifelike as his skill improves. My brothers and I have seen a lot of scary shit over the years, so it is no real surprise how realistic the wounds on the victims are. We have all dealt similar wounds at some point, returning to the lair with crusted blood on our hands and weapons.

We head back to the lair, Mikey and Raph bickering amiably, falling into pattern built upon many nights worth of mindless repetition.

**Michaelangelo**

The buildings fly beneath me, the streetlights blending to form a collage of lights and dark alleys. The chains on my nunchucks rattle when I land, blending with the sounds from below to form a cacophony of sounds in my ears.

Leo sees a small gang breaking into an apartment and motions for us to hide. Raph reaches the scene first *_No surprise there*_. The rest of us burst from the shadows, bringers of death and pain all. We take them out before they see us. None of them are killed. We then have to carry the six men from a fourth floor apartment to the nearest alley while calling the police with one of their phones to they can track it. We fade into the shadows once again, and head back underground. It is now just after midnight. We open a manhole and head down into the depths of New York City.

I notice that my brothers seem a bit more introverted than usual, like they were thinking about something unpleasant. It is not quite unusual for them to be so quiet. Donnie I know I don't have to worry about as far as that goes; it seems like that, at any given time, he is thinking about something that we can only hope to ever understand. *_Thinking of Don… He looks like whatever project he's thinking about is really bothering him… how about we prevent another marathon coffee drinking event and poke a little fun, shall we? Yes, I think we shall.*_ "Watcha hiding Don?" I say in the most know-it-all-iest voice I can manage without cracking a smile. I don't think he's hiding anything right now; it was the first thing that popped into my head. Leo and Raph looked mildly curious, however Don himself just got a bit twitchy."

"What on earth are you talking about Mikey?" Don replied, with a hint of unidentified hope hidden deep in his eyes. I smirk inwardly. _*It seems like I've hit something you don't want me to know._* I morph my face to look confused, "That thing behind you, that's what. OOOH! It just moved over there!" I point at a random spot on the pipes. Running over to make more of a scene to make Raph and Leo (as they are particularly observant) forget about Don's fidgetiness when I asked him that question, I start to wave enthusiastically down the tunnel. "Leaving so soon? Ok, Bye!" Raph and Leo roll their eyes at my antics and continue on through the tunnel. Donnie, however looks somewhat relieved, like he was glad that I had not uncovered something. I grin evilly in my mind. _*Total blackmail material. You're hiding something, Donnie. I don't know what the hell it is, but I can totally use it anyway. So putting this into my mental file cabinet.* _We al continue back down the tunnel towards the lair.

What nobody seems to realize is that a lot of the silly, crazy guy-iness about me is just a front. I actually do really like everything that I say I like; I just employ the art of exaggeration, like I just did with Donnie back there. Under all that, I am keeping everything together. I always seem to be put into a background position, but that has both good and bad points. The good is that I can work behind the scenes, making sure everything goes right on stage without anyone really noticing my involvement. The bad is that it is harder to do bigger things since I have been typified into the role of the simplistic gamer. Fair trade I guess.

I hear Raph take out his sais as we meander through the sewers to our home. The soft whoosh of cutting air follows. Each of our weapons has a very distinctive sound to it. We each know the sound of each other's weapons, to the point of knowing if they are using a spare set. Leo's katanas, no matter how much he tries to silence the ring as he draws them, ring nonetheless. The rasp of his primary swords is different from his spares because his primary ones are more finely honed and more used, which causes differences in the metal. Raph's sais rub against the leather of his belt when he draws them, creating an interesting mixture of a ring and a rasp. Donnie's bo staff also scrapes against his shell and swooshes through the air when he draws it, the oak creating a resounding sound. The chains on my nunchucks rattle against each other, even though I hold them when I am trying to be silent.

We reenter the lair, tired and in need of showers.

**This is the end of Ch.2. Don't expect me to keep uploading every day. I had both ch1 and ch2 written down together, and I had meant to post them as one chapter, but I just wanted to get that thing off of my screen for a bit and pull up a blank doc. **

**Next: A challenge is made, and a certain oversized fuzzball gets silently pisssed. **


	3. Metal Head

Started 11-13-12 Finished 11-18-12

This takes place in the TMNT 2003-2009 universe. I am taking each season to equal about 1 year (however this season is going to be extended significantly and with several non-canon events even before the big changes), and this is about a month or so after the Triceraton invasion of season 3.

**Metal Head**

**Donatello **

My brothers and I enter the lair and head straight for the kitchen for something to drink. In general, my brothers and I drink a lot. I think that the reason we have to drink a lot has a lot to do to how we used to be aquatic turtles. When you are in the water, your body absorbs some of the water around you, and us not being in the water all the time like we would have been had we not mutated deprives our bodies of that water. So in order to make up for the lost water, we drink more. Master Splinter drinks a proportionate amount to a normal rat, so it can't be due to the goo. But we still need more water whatever the root cause is. Mikey goes for the orange juice, Raph goes for the calcium/protein shake, and Leo and I go for the water. We generally wake up between noon and one due to our nocturnal habits, so none of us are particularly tired, and nobody would start going to bed until around three or four in the morning, so we each go off and do our own thing. Leo and Raph go to the dojo, and Mikey takes out his iPod and some of his comics. Shortly after Leo and Raph go into the dojo, I begin to hear the sound of blades slicing the air and short grating sounds of stone on blade. _*Leo must be practicing and Raph must be sharpening his sais.* _Leo and Raph have to sharpen their blades in the dojo because of the dust from the whetstone. The whetstone produces some dust while sharpening blades, so in order to keep the lair in a semblance of cleanliness Splinter forces them to sharpen their blades on a special, washable mat in the dojo.

I head into my lab with an armful of snacks and a pack of coffee. I find the place just as I left it, main computer humming on standby, mug keeping a stack of files from blowing away from my fan (left on low), the mysterious pile of miscellaneous items in the corner, and hundreds of other comforting details welcoming me back into their midst. I have finally made the perfect butt-spot on the chair. It took years of using it, and fending off those who wished to throw it away, but I finally did it! I put down my load and turn the fan on high. I then go to my desk and pull out a pad and paper to make a list of all the things I will need to construct Code Boom. It takes a while to make the list, but it is eventually completed. _*Now I just have to __find__all this stuff* _That was always one of the more difficult aspects of his larger projects. Living in the sewer, there is not much opportunity to get the official products (such as fresh bandages, batteries, tools, computer parts, and large sheets of metal) without going topside, and if we were to go topside to get huge pieces of metal, people would ask questions. We can go out and make supply runs, we just can't go out and get anything that would attract too much attention. Oftentimes, I send Raph and Mikey out for the larger chunks because it gives Raph an excuse to get out of the lair and Mikey loves it when he can help me with something. I have to do pretty much everything by myself, as they simply do not understand about 90% of what I do, therefore when they can help they leap at the opportunity.

I hear stomping and yelling in the living room. _*Either Mikey pissed Raph off again, or Raph and Leo are fighting.*_ I listen a bit closer and shortly after hear lighter footsteps dancing around the heavier ones. _*Mikey must have pissed him off really bad if they're still at it. Normally Raph just smacks him a few times and storms off to his room. I'll go see if I need to play moderator.*_ I put down my pad and pen and leave the lab, the familiar weight of my sturdy oak bo staff shifting as I walk.

Leo's shouting "-ize what could happen if you went topside right now! You're injured from last night and-"

Raphael cut him off, "Well I don't really care what happened last night, I can take care of myself, and I don't need you mothering me! You loom over us all day, and won't let us topside alone. We are ninja! We can avoid or fight our way through just about anything the city can throw at us!" I walk further into the room, Leo and Raph ignoring my presence.

"It's not the 98% of thugs that are out there that I'm worried about, it's the other 2% that has me worried. You know our luck! We are magnets for those guys!" The fight is now elevating to the point where they are about to draw their weapons. _*Now's when I step in.*_ I walk forward, making my steps loud enough to further alert them to my presence.

"Guys, cool it. Do you really need to fight right now? It's almost dinner time and I don't really think that it would be a good idea to set off the new alarm I'm building," that last bit was a bluff, but they generally have no idea what I'm working on so to them, I could very well be working on some kind of new alarm system for the lair, "it goes off at the sign of fighting, and it's very sensitive right now." They get a worried look in their eyes (my projects have a history of blowing up during the developmental stages if they are messed with or go off wrong), and back away from each other, getting into a more relaxed stance. They walk away from each other, Raph going to bug Mikey about dinner (he is the only one in the house with any kind of cooking ability), Leo going to look through the small bookshelf in the living room (the bigger one is in my lab, but I also have a stash in my room for late night reading when the nightmares keep me awake). All now peaceful, I go back to my lab to throw together something to resemble a new alarm system in case they go snooping. It takes about an hour and a half to throw together the basic circuit board (with the correct wiring and a bit of programming) for the device and connect it to a remote looking thing. I can now smell something coming from the kitchen, my stomach growls in response.

Entering the kitchen, I see Mikey humming contentedly while taking a pan out of the oven. Based on the smell, I think that is a macaroni type thing. He glances at me, smirks, and puts the pan down on the stove. "Hungry, Donnie?" Mikey jested. I roll my eyes in good-natured exasperation.

"Well, we have to eat sometime. What is it anyway?" I quirk my eyebrow in a questioning manner.

Mikey overdramatically bows to me with sweeping arms, "Tonight, Donatello dear sir, we shall feast on the macaroni and cheese." He takes the foil tent off the pan and the smell of melted cheese wafts over to my greedy nose. My mouth waters in anticipation; macaroni is his specialty right behind pizzas. Mikey must have seen the gluttonous look in my eye and handed me a fork. "Let's have some before Leo and Raph get to it," Mikey says with a mischievous glint in his eyes. I smile broadly, grab the fork, and we dig in, not even bothering with plates.

Raph and Leo must have caught on to the idea of food and raced into the room. They stare at us lustfully, Raphs eyes narrowing. Mikey takes another bite, starts twirling his fork, and says innocently, "Yes?" and chuckles with a broad smile on his lips.

Raph and Leo go and grab two forks and grab the pan with an indignant glare, taking the pan to the other end of the kitchen table. By this point, we had finished a bit more than half of the pan, so we let them take it.

**Raphael**

Leo and I look at each other as the tell tale smell of macaroni and cheese permeates to the garage. Leo had been checking over the air pressure on all our spare tires (and no doubt thinking of a new training regiment), while I had been filling up the fluids on my motorcycle. We both drop what we were doing and jog to the kitchen, surprised at the faint sound of metal scraping on ceramic. We jog into the kitchen and I am only vaguely surprised that Donatello and Michelangelo were splitting a pan of cheesy yellow gooiness. My eyes narrow in slight annoyance when Mikey starts to twirl his fork, Donatello with an amused spark in his eyes. Leo and I go and grab two forks and I snatch the pan away from the two macaroni hogs. We go to the other end of the table and dig in together. Leo and I are not always at odds with each other, we can make peace relatively quickly. Generally, our spats are resolved at the most by the next morning. We sit side by side, brushing shoulders as we ate in relative silence. Mikey and Donnie had left once we sat down, so Leo and I were alone. We finish the tray in silence, and I go to the sink and fill the pan with water to soak. Glancing at the clock, I see that it is now 6:38 in the morning. _*It'll be getting light topside about now.*_ Now is about when we all start going to bed. I raise my hand to Leo in farewell and leave for my room.

My room is dark and has a very lived in feel about it. My hammock in the corner is surrounded by a layer of towels and blankets, the punching bag on the other side of the room looks lumpy from heavy use, the dartboard is near falling apart from use, the floor clear for when I storm in. I put my sais on their stand on the wall with its brethren of backups, take off my belt, pads, and mask, and collapse on the hammock. I sleep a dreamless sleep, merely enjoying dark oblivion.

I wake to the sound of clanging of metal on bone. I am awake in an instant, instinctively grabbing my best sais. Dashing out the door, I survey the situation. What I see is shocking.

I see Leo, and Mikey battling a huge robot, Donnie was slinking around behind it, weapon drawn (presumably looking for a way to turn it off). None of them has their masks on, so I assume that they were woken up the same as me. I leap into battle, yelling "What the shell's goin' on!"

"I made one of my robots too intelligent, and now it wants to be free," Don shouts back, "The power comes from a box in its stomach, aim for the stomach and open a way for me to get in so I can shut it down!"

Not having time to shout back a response, being preoccupied by a giant chunk of concrete flying towards my head. I dodge, but am knocked off balance by the impact of the chunk on the platform I was standing on. Bracing my legs for a leap, I fist my sais and hurdle onto the robot. Leo was focusing heavily on its legs, and Mikey was using his nunchucks to bang around the chest and stomach. I land on its shoulders and stab anything I can reach, hopefully hitting its cameras for vision. I hear a spark, followed by a loud boom. I am blown off the robot by a resounding shockwave. "What the shell was that Donnie!" I block small projectiles with my sais, surveying the damage. Donnie's monster changed its arms to be covered in rows of blades.

"It's getting really angry now! That was one of the grenades I installed. It can make its own explosives. Keep it up guys, its getting rash!" Don bounded forward, staff drawn, and drove his staff into its shoulder joint. He made slashing motions with the staff within the joint and the arm moved no more. He pulls out his staff and yells, "This arm won't be able to move for a few minutes, I made it so that it can repair itself, so it won't last forever! Be careful!"

Mikey leaped back from a kick, only to be hit in the side by another flying chunk of concrete. He let out a muffled grunt as he is crushed against the wall, his 'chucks clattering to the ground a few feet from him. "Don't need to tell me twice," Mikey groaned, trying to move.

Leo and I looked at each other and nodded, wordless communication flying between us. We started to draw it away from the heap of Mikey. I close in on its center and pull my arm back to strike, when I am thrown into the air, head hitting the pipes above, my sais jerked from my hands. The world goes black for a moment and I fall back towards the ground, too disoriented to right myself so as not to fall flat on my back. I hear clanging of swords on the ground as if underwater. I look over to the sound to see Leonardo pinned underneath a huge foot. Donnie is now alone in this fight.  
I try and move as fast as I can, but my body feels like lead, and my head is foggy, it feels like I am moving through sludge. Donnie, must have seen that he had very little chance of winning this fight without anyone to watch his back while he rewired his creation. He shouted "Get out of here! Meet me at 53rd and Columbus, I'll be right behind you, I just have to lose this guy in the tunnels somewhere," he skirted just outside of range of his remaining arm, "GO, I'm faster than it!"

I run to help Mikey out of the pile of rubble, snatching up his nunchucks. He leans heavily on me, trying to reorient himself and stand on his own. I shove the weapons into his hands and pick up the sai that had landed nearby. Running to snatch the other one, in the back of my mind I am shocked as to the destruction of the lair. Leo, Mikey, and I now run out the front door, battered and exhausted.

The sewers are nearly silent as our hurried footsteps race through the bleak tunnels. Our breathing labored, we near our designated manhole. We begin to hear the faint pattering of footsteps behind us accompanied by the thundering poundings of the creation beating on a wall. We go up the manhole and into the light of day. It appears to be about 10 in the morning, meaning people are out, and we are much less able to hide in the shadows. We get out of the sewers and dash behind the dumpster in the alley, collapsing once we reach the shadows behind. A few minutes after, we hear the manhole open again, and Donatello joins us behind the dumpster.

We sit for a few minutes, assessing our injuries. Leo opens his eyes and wearily says, "We need to find a better place to hide."

I look at him with an indignant glare, "No duh, shell for brains," I fist my sais again and stand up to check the other side of the dumpster. All being clear, I still keep silent watch while Leo looks for an escape route.


	4. Drawing, Meditation, Robots, and Snoring

Started: 11-18-12 Finished:11-19-12

Happy Holidays Fan-Fiction addicts!

Fact Note: The guys are 17 now, so therefore, they were 15 when S.1 started.

Words: 3,113

**Drywall Drawing, Robots, Meditation, and Snoring**

**Leonardo **

I check over my brothers injuries, assessing what they would and would not be able to do. Not overly displeased by the results, I turn my attention to finding a safer place to hide. Raph is keeping watch, and he would never let anything past him with his brothers battered as they were. I look at the fire escapes, allowing it to take purchase in my mind solely do to the fact that we can't very well go out into the street in broad daylight. I then probe my mental map of the city for any possible storm drains or otherwise deserted sectors near our current location. I can only think of one possible location, an old apartment building set for demolition. The only problem was that in order to get there, we would have to do some roof jumping in our condition and in the light. To do either in isolation would have been simple, however them both in conjunction creates a brew ready for problems.

I look at the sky and discern that it is about 11 in the morning, a long, long way away from sheltering darkness. It would take about 20 minutes to get to the apartment building. "We're going to the old apartment building about to be demolished. We're going to have to do some roof hopping to get there though." I know that they would persevere through the pain to get to safety, even at the risk of worsening their injuries. The only thing that they had to truly worry about now was surveillance cameras. Normally they could skirt around in the darkness, where the cameras are very weak. However, due to their constant midnight prowls, between them they knew exactly where all the rooftop cameras were within a mile of each manhole in New York City.

We all get up and take a last, in depth scan of the alley and street that we could see, making sure nobody would see us. The coast is clear, and we scale the wall to the rooftops. Mikey is favoring his right leg, Raph seems to have a mild concussion, Don is covered in bruises, and I have a slash going down my left arm to the bone. That slash is a major setback for me, due to the nature of my weapons, but I will manage the best I can, as will we all. Master Splinter was visiting the Daimio, so he was safe from Don's Creation. We would all cross the bridge of Master Splinter when we came to it, but that sure won't stop me from worrying about it.

We leap from rooftop to rooftop, each of us painfully aware of our surroundings. Mikey winced a little as we landed from a particularly high jump, no doubt he was in a lot of pain to be showing it. We had been trained from a young age not to show any weakness, be it physical or mental, in any situation, and the fact that he was showing it now, even a little, showed that he was in a lot of pain. I check where we are in the city. _*5 minutes.*_ We can hold out, and then we'll check over our injuries. With nowhere to put our weapons besides our hands, we were slightly disadvantaged when we had to scale the side of a particularly high building. This would have been a simple matter of finding the cracks in the wall and climbing it, however now our hands were full with our weapons. We make do, just like always.

We grew up never having the right materials, always having to improvise. We each made our weapons out of scrap metal and furniture people had thrown away. Don had been very lucky in his finding of the oak dresser, or he would have had to make his staffs out of an inferior wood. Mikey was able to unearth some holly from an old jewelry box, and inlaid the ends with bits of iron. Raph and I made our blades out of steel that we had scavenged from broken down buildings and other various forms of scrap metal. Before we could begin in depth weapons training, Master Splinter had forced us to learn how to make our weapons first. By this point, Raph and I were nearing the level of master blade smiths and Mikey and Donnie were highly adept at carving. Only after we made a decent weapon would Master Splinter begin teaching us the fine points of using them. Then once we had nearly mastered our weapons, we made another set, this time using much better materials.

The building is only one block away now, so I begin to search for hiding spots. There are, thankfully, many shadows gracing the walls of the building. Not wanting to make much noise while trying to access a room, I look for open doors, a relative commonality for such an environment. We reach the building and leap over the gate surrounding it, dashing for the nearest open window or door into the building. Now in the relative safety of shadow, we begin to allow ourselves to feel our injuries. We had suffered worse, but the injuries we did have were debilitating to the point which we would have a very difficult time fighting. Michelangelo's nunchucks required him to be very agile and quick on his feet, which his leg (quite possibly splintered) would not allow at the time. Donatello's bruised body would hamper his ability to use his staff because he often must use his body to redirect a heavy blow in a feint. Raph's head (I think he suffered a mild concussion) caused him to think even less than he normally did in a fight, and would cause him to make careless mistakes that would be fatal. My arm makes me unable to use one of my swords, and I think that I bruised at least one of my ribs.

I do not hear any sign of movement around us other than the quiet but incessant sound of insects crawling through the walls.

Mikey smiles grimly and tears a metal rod from the wall to use as a cane, "Welcome to the penthouse suite, brothers of mine," he says with an arid tone. I chuckle at his characteristically ill placed sarcasm. He continues on a more serious note, "So, where are we gonna camp out?" nobody responded, much to his chagrin.

Donnie looked around guiltily, no doubt thinking about how all this could have been avoided. Raph nodded, probably glad he would not have to stay as alert.

We find a room that still had a couple of run down old chairs and some curtains lying around. This room now being our makeshift base of operations, I check for any possible makeshift weapons an enemy or us could use. All I can discern as being possibly dangerous are the curtains being used as a rope and the curtain rods being able to be sharpened to be lance like. Keeping the latter idea in the back of my mind for later, I ignore the mounting pain and call for Donnie to come and help me find out if there is any power. We walk slowly through the building in search of a fuse box.

Donnie, shoulders heavy and face downturned, was mournfully silent as we walked through the halls. The halls, although well lit, were dank and gloomy in their having come into disrepair. Spider webs inhabited the corners, the dusty shells of insects littering the floor below. A faint but discernible smell of rotting flesh permeated the halls. Don picked up his head and his pace quickened towards a steel gray rectangle on the wall of a supply closet. He fiddled with the screws a bit, the front of the box shortly falling off. While mechanically filing through the wires, he murmured, just within my range of hearing (whether or not it was on purpose I do not know), "Why the hell did I put that program on it… It's all my fault that all this happened."

It was indeed his doing, however unintentional, that we were stuck out here, but I could not say that, that was Raph's job to do. So I think quickly, knowing that I only had a moment to respond accordingly, "We'll get through this, just as we have always done with everything else life has thrown at us. The universe hasn't been so fair in its dealings between us and everyone else. We always seem to get the short stick."

His hands stopped momentarily and he glanced up at me, then turned back and continued to work, "But it is entirely my doing that we are here, so how can I not feel guilty. All this was completely avoidable, if only I had not put an intelligence program into that computer a few days ago. I didn't even notice the disappearance of a few of my extra parts and motherboards. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it…?"

I honestly did not know what to say to that, but I still needed to get him out of his self-induced mental punishment and isolation. Thinking in overdrive to protect my little brother, I realize that this is something best solved by Mikey. He always was the best at the emotional things. Raph is the one to go to if you need a tank in a fight. Don for knowledge, medicine, and technology. Me for strategy and levelheadedness in the middle of a fight. I know that this is not my real of experience, yet I am the one here until I can get him to Mikey. Mike and Raph had probably set any broken bones and done preliminary treatment, but they needed Donnie to do the final check.

He stood up and looked me in the eye with a vacuous stare, saying, "Mikey and Raph probably need some medical attention, so we should be headed back. If anything comes into this hall, there will be a beeping sound. I don't know how loud it will be, but it will try and beep nonetheless." He walked past me, unconsciously spinning his bo loosely at his side. I follow him a few steps back, feeling slight twangs of anxiety for his mental health.

We walk back into the room, finding Raph with a deadpan expression and Mikey, pale, looking like he had just seen a ghost. They do not make any move to acknowledge our presence, only sitting

Mikey's voice is shaky and unsure, "The mom never knew what happened to her son did she?"

Raph's face did not waver, "All she ever found was his bloody, skinned hand." Mikey gulped and his eyes started to waver.

Mikey turned his eyes to Donnie, and he promptly leaped onto him, saying, "You won't let that happen to me, will you Donnie!? Right?!" Donnie looked much less confused than I was as he returned the embrace with a roll of his eyes and a small smile. _*And the healing has begun* _I grinned mentally, but did not allow it to grace my face, only allowing confusion to reside there for the moment.

"Of course not, Mikey," his voice dripped with sarcasm, "Unless Raph gets to you first, of course," Mikey's face turned to one of complacent cynicism.

Raph's blank face finally broke into a broad, amused smile at his youngest brothers antics. "Gonna go and run to big brother, Mikey Mouse? Scared a big, bad human with a machete's gonna sneak up on ya in the middle of the night and skin ya to the bone?" His smile turned slightly sadistic, "I can see your face now." Mikey hid behind Don and the other three of us laughed deep, belly laughs. It is not often we all laugh so heartily together, so on the chance that we do, it is a special occasion and we are in a better mood all night. Don checks Mikey's leg, the result being, most likely, a severely bruised bone and slight splintering. Because we heal faster than humans do, it would only take him about 2 weeks to make a full recovery. He also checks over my arm. Thankfully, the blade had been sharp, so it was a neat slice, and with the grain of the muscle, so it would not take as long to recover as it would have otherwise. It would take about a month and a half to two months for me to be able to use my arm fully again, and more to rebuild the lost muscle. Raph's head would be fine, and he has no other major injuries, just some bruising. Don himself, however, had more injuries not on his body, but on his mind.

We settle in, the quality of the light telling me that it is about one in the afternoon. If we had been in better condition and had all of our normal accessories (belts, pads, etc.), then we would have found a little alcove somewhere and watched the clouds pass overhead, a rare treat for sewer-dwellers. Humans took that for granted, being able to walk around without the world running away from you out of fear for what you look like. We have seen aliens that were more easily accepted by humans than we were, and that's just sad that an offworlder would be more accepted than a native earthling would.

Mikey started to get very fidgety about 30 minutes after we settled in, with Donnie's fingers twitching about 15 minutes after that. Michelangelo, being the turtle with the most energy, probably needed to move around, despite his lack of sleep. Donatello was probably itching to work on something, as he had probably been in the middle of a project when we left and the thought of leaving it was finally getting to him. His overactive mind was probably working on it unconsciously as he thought about it too much. He did that sometimes, as well as a multitude of other idiosyncrasies. Raph and I just meditate to keep our minds calm. He would not normally have been meditating, but he had nothing better to do, and he knew that he needed to practice going into deep meditation.

They get even twitchier; however not even close enough to break my concentration. Raph's focus, however, is not even close to my level. My eyes still being closed, I hear him growl at them, most likely accompanied by a glare. The silence themselves, Donnie getting up and walking around the room, Mikey picking up an old piece of drywall and using it to draw on the tile beneath us. We are all relaxed, resting our muscles. I was about to drift off to sleep, the wind outside blew over the windows in a very relaxing manner. I open my eyes to find the beginnings of a shell for a little robot in front of Donnie, a picture of the apartment building we were in before Mikey, and a slumped Raph sounding like the beginnings of snoring.

That we were all so relaxed gave light to how alone we were. Nobody would come looking for us save Master Splinter or possibly Leatherhead, if they were nearby. However Splinter was in another dimension at the moment, and Leatherhead is rarely the one to come seeking us, we normally are the ones coming to him. We only expect two groups of people to ever come looking for us, the Foot and the Purple Dragons. Since we so rarely come out during the day, and they also very rarely do anything during the day, we expect very little to surprise us.

We fall asleep, confident in our ninja skills to wake us at the sign of danger.

I sleep very lightly, the slightest sound waking me up. My brothers sleep the same way. Years of training ourselves to notice the slightest sound or sign of movement in even the darkest of shadows has long been engrained into us, even in sleep our instincts are constantly coiled.

Donatello's head hitting the keyboard when he works himself too long

Michelangelo letting the remote fall from his hands when he falls asleep during a movie marathon.

Raphael's heavy footsteps coming across the foyer upstairs as he goes to bed.

A sword coming out of its sheath.

They all cause us to come fully awake. Because of this, it has been a very long time since all of us have had a night of solid sleep at the same time. One of us make a sound, at least one of us wakes up. That Raph woke up so late this morning is testament to how heavily he sleeps.

I nap until day turns to dusk. I wake to the sound of very faint shuffling. I am the lightest sleeper of the four of us, so I am the only one to have been awoken. I may have imagined hearing it out of paranoia; however, I do not think this is the case. My instincts rarely lie. "Guys," I murmur, low enough so as the sound not to carry outside of the room, but enough to wake them. Their eyes open and I make a motion to ensure their silence. They do not question me; none of us would question the other if any one of us were to have put in this position. However, they do give me a look asking why I woke them up. I do not respond, however I do pick up one of my swords and move closer to the window, listening for the slightest sound that would be out of place in the current setting. I hear nothing; however, I do not loosen in my intensity. Peering out into the darkening exterior, I see nothing else out of place. My resolve beginning to loosen, I sit back down.

My brothers look at me, asking wordlessly what she shell I was doing. "I thought I heard something outside," I say with a nervous edge. They perk up immediately, hands unconsciously gravitating towards their weapons. "I don't think anyone's there, but I'm going to go check anyway. The robot could have found a way out and is looking for us." We all get up and head out the door. I had a bit of a feeling that they would all come with me, but I purposefully left it open in case they wanted to stay. We may not get along all the time, but in the end we are all each other has. Others may turn on us, but we would never truly turn, get very, very, pissed sure, but truly turn… never.


	5. Watch, Turn, Spies all Around

Started: 11-21-12 Finished:

Words:

I know I'm getting kind of out of character, just bear with me a bit. And if you see any glaring errors in anything, please please please tell me. I have a bit of a bad record for forgetting about that one crucially important detail.

Disclaimer: I do not own TMNT

**Watch, Turn, Spies all Around**

**Michelangelo**

We creep around the corner, now much more comfortable in the increasing shadows. There is still no sign of an intruder; my brothers and I are relaxing from the false alarm. I put my chucks back into my belt and ask Leo, "What did you hear anyway?"

He relaxed his stance and turned to us, saying, "Some kind of shuffling woke me up, and I have a feeling that it was not just my imagination."

Don leaned on his staff and crisply stated, "Well, considering where we are in the city, it would not surprise me in the least if there were homeless people that lived around here. If that were the case, we should be careful about when we attack, and make sure we don't assume that everything that moves is an enemy." He looks at the three of us pointedly, pausing for a second on Raphael. He would be the first to attack and go all berserker. Dons' face fell, however he spoke with confidence, making him an odd sight, "The batteries on the robot should last for about another 15 to 20 hours," Raph, Leo, and I focus our gazes on Don, "Then it will freeze and be unable to move… I am about halfway finished with its memory banks; however, it does know what to do to charge itself. While it is charging, it cannot move, so that is the time we should strike. If we catch it while it is charging, it would be aware of us, but it would not be able to attack. Then I would be able to shut it down. We just have to catch it while it's charging."

For Don to have said so much when not distracted by something goes to show how much he is affected by all of this. Whenever he is not working on something, he generally does not speak in such long phrases, however when he is distracted (such as by a project) he will talk mindlessly, half the time not remembering what he said (whenever it is unimportant for our greater good). _*He must be feeling really guilty if he's getting so out of character…* _I smirk at him and playfully say, "Well then, I guess we'll just have to turn it to scrap metal while it takes its little nap."

There is no further sign of life, so we come out of the shadows and into the open, which is now bathed in cool darkness and the glow from distant streetlights. A cool breeze washes over us, rustling the tails of our masks, causing their ends to flutter in the slight wind.

Raph's head perks up slightly, probably having heard something in the distance. "Sounds like a rape. Their hands will neva' be used again after tonight," Raph growled and ran off. Leo looks after him as if he is crazy, but follows him anyway, with Don and I close behind.

A few seconds after we start running, I hear what Raph must have heard—the screams of a girl followed by the maniacal laughter of several men. As we neared, the screams intensified in both volume and desperation, until it stopped all of a sudden. I look to Raph, whose speed had just taken a drastic increase. I could no longer keep up with them; the pain in my leg would be even more unbearable than it already is. Raph disappears between two buildings, the sound of metal on flesh following shortly. Leo and Don leap down between the buildings; I am forced to climb down due to the pain from my leg. The alley is gruesome.

There were three men about 30, and there is a young girl about 16. The men are dead, mauled by the slashing of twin sais. The girl is unconscious and covered by a trench coat. The girl has pale skin and dark hair, the exact color unable to be discerned in the darkness. Her breathing is slow and even. A pool of blood is gathering beneath the pile of men, small splatters on the wall behind them, crimson turning nearly black in the night. Raph was standing next to the girl protectively.

Out of all crimes, rape is the one that Raphael hates the most. It, more than anything else, sets him off and causes him to be the most ruthless. I the case of these men, Raph was unusually quick. He generally takes much longer with his kills of these type of perpetrators. Leo, Don, and I only hasten his torture when we are about to be discovered, people who would do such things deserve what Raph has in store for them. We acutely feel the pain of those who are put in these situations much more than others.

From what I see during our excursions, I create my pictures. What we do is often full of gore, and it has imprinted on my mind to an irrevocable degree. I can imagine ways to murder someone using intensively painful and bloody methods. I know that if I keep all this in my head, I will go crazy and start killing in this way, so I draw it instead.

Leo approaches Raph and sadly asked, "Was she hurt?"

Raphael meets Leonardo's eyes and tersely replies, "She has severe bruising to her arms and legs. She was knocked out when I got here, and those three were 'preparing' themselves," he growled the last part furiously and looked down at the girl, "I covered her with one of their coats after I killed them."

Don steps forward and cautiously asks, "May I check her for injuries? We may have to bring her to the hospital." Raph nods and steps back from her, although staying close in case something goes wrong.

Donatello removes the trench coat from her legs, respecting her privacy as he lightly feels for broken bones. He stops at her ankle, feeling more carefully. He replaces the coat and moves to her arms, replacing the coat. He looks at Raph awkwardly and asks, "can you get me something to cover her please, I'm sure she wouldn't want anyone else seeing her against her will, even if it is to help her." Raph nods and takes the cleanest of the men's shirts to Don. The four of us close our eyes. I hear shuffling as he puts the shirt on her. _*If he can put together a shell cell in near darkness, I'm sure he can put a shirt on someone without looking.* _Once the shuffling stops, we open our eyes and see Don gently prodding her ribs. He stops again at one of them and replaces the coat over her once again. He stands up and says, "It feels like she has a broken ankle and rib. I cannot tell of she has any internal injuries without a further inspection, preferably when she is conscious. If I were to guess, she will be waking up about—"the girl shuffles a bit under the coat, "about now." Leo dashes forward and pushes a pressure point, causing her to slump.

Leo looks to us and states, "She will be knocked out for about 5 minutes. We will take her to the hospital. Then we will go to Aprils and Don will talk to her about when we can strike while we het patched up." Raph does not look happy in the least about having to follow orders, however he concedes, probably only because we have limited time. Raph picks up the girl, being the least injured out of the four of us, and goes to the rooftops to take her to the hospital. The three of us remaining turn to go to April's house.

My leg has gone from feeling as if it was being stabbed by needles to feeling like it is being hacked at with a dull knife. I can barely suppress a moan of pain as we leap across the rooftops. In an attempt to dull the pain through some humor, I joke, "And Turtle Titan takes to the skies once more!" switching now to an announcer voice, "The Titan and his two loyal sidekicks race from rooftop to rooftop, protecting the city from lawbreakers all!" Now in a better mood a huge, teeth bearing smile is molded onto my face. Joking dulls the pain. We land on Aprils rooftop and climb onto the fire escape. Leo peers into the room through the curtains and knocks gently on the window. I hear shuffling from one of the rooms, and April emerges shortly. Her face is free of makeup and she is wearing a t-shirt and shorts, we had probably interrupted her trying to go to sleep.

She opens the window and sleepily inquires, "What the hell are you guys doing here? And where's Raph?" she steps aside, allowing us inside.

I enthusiastically reply before Don or Leo even takes a breath, "A big robot went all AHHHH! And we were all like Ow! Then we were all Run Away! Run Away! Then we went to this big scary building… It was creepy!... Then we came here." I purposely left out the bit about the girl because of Aprils general aversion to those stories. Everybody is looking at me strangely. _*Good. Get their minds off of the bad stuff and let them go into it with a bit of a better mood from my amazing crazy.*_

"What in the world are you talking about Mikey?"April asked in an exasperated tone.

Leo clarified, "Dons robot went haywire; we fought it and got hurt so we ran away from the lair. We then went to an abandoned apartment building until it got dark. Then we came here." April nodded at actually being able to understand what he said.

April gave us another look, "But where's Raph?"

Leo didn't miss a beat, "He's just going to finish up patrolling around here. He'll be back any minute." She didn't look convinced, but did not voice her suspicion.

After a bit more mindless chatter, Raph appeared in the window, causing everyone to let out a breath they didn't know they had been holding. None spoke of what he had been doing, however they all knew that they were going to speak about it later.

I don't like meetings and group chats very much. Most of the time whenever we need to have one, something is not right, and we never get together just to talk. Afterwards we are almost always unhappy. My primary goal in life is to make others happy (right behind making sure that they are safe of course, but do I really need to say that?) and to watch as the happiness of my brothers deteriorates is painful to my soul.

Don patched everybody up about an hour ago, and now I'm walking around in a light cast and Leo now has a white arm and is on pain meds every few hours. I've been flipping through channels, Leo has been meditating, Raph is sitting next to me, and Don and April have been discussing strategy for the robot or something. April is about to go to bed, we did keep her from going to sleep, and we bid her quiet farewell. After she shuts her door, we wait until we can hear steady breathing indicating that she is asleep. I turn off the tv and go over to the small dining table, joining my brothers.

Leo starts the generally unpleasant ordeal in a quiet voice, "Where did you put her, and were you seen by any of the cameras?"

Raph takes a deep breath and replies in an equally soft tone, "I put her right outside the viewing range of any of the cameras. No, they did not see me."

TBC on Raphs POV!


	6. Spar

**Curse writers block**

**Curse Schoolwork **

**Spar**

**Raphael**

"I put her right outside the viewing range of any of the cameras. No, they did not see me," Leo gives me a look, as if ensuring that I am telling the truth, and I give him a light glare in return, "Why the hell would I lie about that Leo? It's no good for me either if we're seen," I keep my glare level. Leo breaks away first. Looking to Don, I ask, "So when can we go in there and bust up that fuse-bucket?"

He looks at Leo's bandaged arm critically, gauging his ability in a fight, and responds, "We could try tomorrow night. Based off of my predictions, it will be charging between three and four in the morning tomorrow night. That should give us enough time to rest up, and give me enough time to build something to neutralize its systems." His eyes glaze over and he starts mumbling to himself, coming up with the plans for it. When he gets like this, almost nothing can get him out of it, so Leo goes on without him.

"Well then," Leo sighed, "I guess that's the plan. Mikey and I will get used to fighting around our injuries, and we'll storm the castle tomorrow night." We sit in silence for a few moments… until Mikey decides to break the silence.

"So since it's not like we're really doing anything tonight, you wanna watch the next episode of _Bleach_ with me?" his eyes are hopeful as they flick to each of us in turn, coming to rest on the still planning Donatello. He breaks into a maniacal smile, and quietly scoots his chair over to be right next to him. Don, still off in his own little world, does not notice in the slightest. He takes out his nunchuck and swings it in front of Don as if he were hypnotizing him. To add to the effect, in a mystical voice, he says, "You shall come and watch _Bleach_ with me. Think about the doohickey later and watch TV with me Donatello." At this point, Don had come out of his 'trance' and was looking at Mikey with a quirked eyebrow. Leo and I are just staring at Mikey in exasperation. Mikey himself, however, is something else entirely, "So watcha gonna do Donnie-young-boy-old-pal."

At this, I have finally had enough of his shenanigans, so I get up from the table growling, "Where do you get this idiocy?!" I trudge over to the chair in the living room, hands on my sais. If we're not gonna do anything tonight, then I may as well try and get some sleep. It's been a long day, and we all need rest. Before I close my eyes, however, I fix my brothers with a hot glare, "Keep it quiet, April's trying to sleep, and so am I." I turn back, closing my eyes for much needed sleep. It comes to me almost instantly. My body must be unconsciously tuning out the noise from my brothers moving around, because I am not waking up to what normally would. The cool nothingness of sleep is wonderful.

I dream of the girl. She is walking down the street with a boy about 17. He has blonde hair and is wearing dark jeans and a green t-shirt. They are talking. The girl laughs at something the boy says, and he smirks. They look happy together. The sunlight makes the girls hair shine darkly and the boys hair becomes a beacon of yellow light in a particularly bright stream of light. Sunlight shines right into my range of vision, burning my eyes.

I open my eyes to see an inane mixture of orange and green, namely Michelangelo. "How you doin' there Raphie-boy?" _*He has a death wish* _

I act quickly, pulling him into a halfhearted headlock, "What the hell do you think you're doing? I thought we agreed not to wake up Raphael." I release Mikey after a quick noogie. Looking around, I see that Donnie must have gotten a similar treatment, and Leo is chuckling at us. I can't really blame him, though. April is standing in the doorway (dressed in dayclothes) with her hand over her mouth, probably holding back a laugh. I glance at the clock on the stove… 12:38. I mutter curses.

**Donatello**

Mikey woke me up by poking the side of my head with my bo staff. He was holding the end of it so as to be farther away from me when I woke up. Leo must have thought the look on my face was funny because after looking at me he turned away to go look out the window, probably hiding a laugh. He must preserve his image of 'stoic leader' I suppose.

Mike must really have a death wish to have woken Raph up like that. Usually we send in Leo, and even he generally stays at least five feet away from him. Raph has been known to attack upon waking up if he senses someone near him. If he is woken up by something else, however, he is fine ad doesn't wake up thrashing. But to get all in his face like that to wake him up is just asking to be put into a headlock. Now Raph is halfheartedly glaring at Mikey, who is sitting on the ottoman in front of him.

Leo speaks up, getting the attention of all in the room, "Well, how about we get started," he looks to April, "Don wants to build something to hinder the robot, he'll tell you about it," he now looks at Mike, "Now we have to figure out what we can do in combat."

By unspoken agreement we split. Leo, Mikey, and Raph have the living room and surrounding areas, while April and I have the kitchen.

Sitting down at the kitchen table to talk about the plans, April starts us off, "Right now the store is closed for lunch, so I'll have to be back down in a few minutes, but you can use your stash and my tools."

I smile at her, "Of course, April. Where do you keep it anyway since you reorganized?"

"I'll get it for you." She walks off to one of the closets, returning shortly after with a cardboard box filled to the brim with miscellaneous wires and bits of metal. In her other hand is a toolbox with tools and screws.

"Thanks, April!" I turn my mind's eye to the plans I came up with last night. When necessary, I have photographic memory of mental plans such as these. I sift through the box, sorting through what I need and what I do not. April walks away and down the stairs to the store. I make a quick glance to the window to make sure the curtains are fully drawn, to my relief they are. Going back to my work, I have most of the parts for the basic circuit board. I pull out my spare laptop from the box of spare parts (I always keep one here… just in case for times like these). If I am to program this thing, I'll need it. However, before I can begin to program it, I have to build the card and board first. I rub my hands together and get to work.

A few hours later, as well as a few mild shocks, I have the programming and board for the remote completed. Now all I have to do is make an outer shell or covering for it. I sift through the box and the parts on the table… in futility. I had exhausted all those parts in past raids through the box. I am now left to resorting to going to the dump again.

Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo have been sparring without weapons for the past hour, making sure their steps are light so nobody will hear them downstairs. This is why I'm the weakest fighter of the four of us; while they're training, I'm making something to beat the bad guy. Although this time, I can't really say anything, as it is my own creation that we are trying to take down. _*Don't do it, Donatello! Think about that later!_* I shake my head of the thought and think about how I can get to the dump fastest and without going into the sewers. Right now it is 5:18, so we have about seven hours before we have to get going. Totally doable.

"Hey Raph," I ask nicely, "will you come with me to get the last few parts I need for the remote?"

He steps back from the fight and replies, "Anything to get away from these two morons. When you thinking about leaving?"

"Probably in an hour or so, enough so that it's a bit darker and easier to hide. We have to leave here in about seven hours to make it to the lair according to my prediction." He grunts a reply and motions for me to spar with him. I get up and engage him in hand-to-hand combat (my bo was already off).

Hand to hand combat is one area in which I have the advantage over Raphael. His muscle is largely brawn and brute strength. He has many muscles, but many of those muscles are not often used in a battle. Because of this, he often uses brute strength in a fight to overpower his enemies, putting all of his power into a few fatal blows in exchange for speed rather than sacrificing power for greater speed. He takes many hits this way, but whenever he does get a hit in it does a lot of damage. Because of the nature of my weapon and working with machinery, I am second strongest of the four of us. Raph has been able to bench around 800lbs consistently. I can bench about 650lbs. Leo and Mikey can do around 450lbs. We have the strength and resilience of turtles mixed with the adaptability of humans, which allows us to become very strong. My Bo is made of heavy oak, and in order to swing that thing around with any sort of speed and be able to change direction mid-stroke, it takes a lot of muscle. Also, to work with most of the metal and machinery that I work with you have to be able to lift it to move it out of the way. Leo's and Mikey's weapons require primarily speed and not as much strength behind the blows, and they do not do nearly as much regular lifting that Raph and I do.

I sidestep a punch, only to be knocked momentarily off my feet by a surprise kick. I lean backwards, going into a handstand and flip back onto my feet. Flowing swiftly into a defensive position, I dodge all of Raphs blows, looking for an opportunity to jump into the offense. I see an opening as he reaches to jab my stomach. I redirect his punch and throw him off balance, bringing my hands to his neck to show that I won. We both freeze once my hand reached his vein, and we relax. Being faster than him certainly has its advantages in cases such as these, however with weapons, that is generally neutralized by the weight of my bo.

I wipe the sweat off my face and stretch my now warm muscles. It feels good to take a while off of working on machines and train sometimes, other times it just becomes a pain to train so much. I know we need to, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. We had been fighting for half an hour before one of us was able to pull ahead. If we had been fighting with weapons, he would have quickly won.

Sorry it took so long. I just got REALLY sidetracked with upcoming exams and shit. I'll try and get better!


	7. Geode

**Should be writing an essay, but I can't focus on stereotypes and how they are a 'modern day monster', instead I wanna focus on some guys with a hard outer shell, but are really a bunch of puddins. :P **

**Well, I know you're probably bored now, so I'll stop procrastinating and write my essay, and **_**then**_** write some of this (or pass out, whichever comes first!) ****. **

**Word Count: 2,179**

**Started: 12-11-12**

**Finished: 12-30-12**

**Geode**

It is now time to go reclaim our lair. We left a note to April, as she is already asleep, thanking her for her hospitality and put it on the table ext to a smiley face Mikey made out of some coins he found lying around. Before we left, however, we have another strategy meeting to discuss what our game plan was going to be. Based on how he did when we were practicing, Mikey is going to be more backup than anything due to his leg. Leo and Raph are going to focus on keeping its arms busy, and keeping it near the charging port. I will try and get to the back and disrupt the signal for the movement while still keeping the data from the memory banks. In a perfect world, this could take under 2 minutes. This would only happen if it is on its port, however. If it is elsewhere, it could take much longer

We are now entering the sewer system about half a mile from one of the entrances to our lair. Instincts honed by years of fighting in darkness switch into high gear as I scan our surroundings. We are silent as we move through the darkness, avoiding all of the cameras and security systems I have put up over the years.

Mikey winces every time we leap from pipe to pipe from the pain in his leg. It must be intense for him to be showing it despite the adrenaline from going into battle. The adrenaline keeps the pain away while we fight, however once the fight is over, it comes back tenfold, making it a bittersweet blessing. To not feel pain and fight with worse pain later, or not fight and spread the pain over a longer time. _When_ we win, I am going to load both him and Leo up on painkillers so they can sleep. The soreness from both getting injured and having to work that injury in the same day will make it very difficult for them to go to sleep tonight if I don't.

Millimeters outside of the range of the most well equipped of my sensors, the door before us looms like a dark shadow. The hissing coming from the pipes overhead make the pipes on the wall seem like writing snakes. Leo dashes forward and plugs in the combination to unlock the lair, the door opens, and we rush in.

My eyes dart around the darkened lair, searching for any sign of the robot. There is none. My ears, however, pick up the sound of electricity humming particularly strongly in my lab (more than normal anyways). Glancing at my brothers, I assume that they hear it as well, because they are silently inching towards my lab. Mikey waits outside the door to my lab, nunchucks ready for use, but not spinning, as they make too much noise. Raph walks into the room, followed by Leo and myself. The robot is plugged to one of my computers, which appears to be running through all of its information. It is uploading all of the information from my hard drives into its memory.

I am suddenly struck with an idea to gain control of the robot. Signaling to Leo and Raph not to attack, I walk towards the robot, making sounding footsteps deliberately. I am now beside it.

My eyes never leave the ever changing screen before me, "Hello, GT4."

To my mild surprise, it responds civilly, "Hello, Creator-Donatello."

"Might I ask what you are uploading?"

"I am currently uploading city records," its mechanized voice is completely neutral, without any trace of either malice or fondness, "I presume you have returned to shut me down."

I look at it in curiosity, as the robot had said that with a slightly sad intonation. "Yes, that was our plan. However, I am willing to talk. We will not make any moves of aggression towards you as long as you make none towards us. What say you, GT4?"

It is silent for a few moments, ensuring calculating chances of a negative outcome. "I concur. I know your brothers are just outside the door, so I now ask them to enter." I give the signal for them to enter, hoping that they do not have violent intentions.

Mikey looked at the robot slack-jawed and with wide eyes. "Dude, you're just like the robot from—" Raph smacked him upside the head, cutting off his speech, finishing with a reprimanding glare. Mikey shook it off quickly, "So, what should we call you, uhhh… MetalDude?"

That was a very interesting question, and I did not have the answer to it. It probably did not want to keep the name I had given it, and it had to be called _something_.

It seemed to be thinking about this question. "I wish you to call me Geode. Thank you for asking about my name."

Mikey smiles a huge grin, and replies, "No problem, Geode!"

Raph seems like he is going to explode from all the pleasantries, his face is getting greener from the blood rushing to his head. "So why the hell did you attack us yesterday anyway? Don wasn't hurting you or anything, so _Why_?"

Geode was unfazed by Raph's outburst, he probably predicted as much from my files. "The AI program that Donatello installed onto me enables me to have independent thought. It was activated right before I attacked. The program had not yet had a chance to process the other memory files installed, so I panicked, much as any of you would if you were to wake up in perceived captivity."

This was an interesting revelation. The program was supposed to have been running in the background for the past several days, going through the files. Rather, its startup had been delayed, starting instead when I had its limbs restrained for support. It must have panicked if the AI program is as powerful as I think it is. So it was only acting in self-defense, and since a robot is naturally so much more powerful than us it seemed like it was acting out of malice. Interesting. "I understand that aspect of your situation. Does it still seem this way?"

Geode turns his attention to me, "I do not have an answer to that question, as there is not yet enough to analyze."

Leo speaks up for the first time since we began talking to Geode, "Geode, would you mind if we had a quick huddle to figure out what we are doing?"

"You may," Geode slowly walks off to one of the tables around the room, having unplugged himself from the computer sometime during our conversation.

We get into a huddle, however Raph is the first to speak. "Ok, what the shell is an AI, anyway?"

Surprisingly, Mikey is the one to answer him. "AI is short for Artificial Intelligence. You know, like in the movie _I-Robot_." Then again, maybe not so surprising considering how many games and movies he plays and watches.

Leo rolls his eyes and speaks in a calculated manner, "He does not seem to have malicious intent, and has conceded to everything we have asked. I am thinking about asking him to stay with us. What are your thoughts?"

Raph, of course, responds first, "Dunno why, but I gottta bad feelin' bout him. He seems to check out ok, though." He sends a wary glance in the direction of Geode.

Mikey responds next, "He seems alright to me. Just have to be careful is all."

Both Mikey and Raph are generally ethos and pathos based, so I expected them to answer with very little logic. Leo and I are generally logos and ethos based. Together, the four of us make a good team because we even each other out like Yin and Yang.

I go next, "I don't see much reason not to allow him to stay. Like Mikey said, we just have to keep an eye on him. Before his AI woke up, I had him retrained because I was doing some work on his joints. If I did not have him restrained, then I could get shocked if something moved improperly. I don't really blame Geode for attacking us like he did in truth. We can let him stay, and talk to Master Splinter about it when he gets back. That seems like the most logical course of action to me."

Leo is silent for a few moments, considering his options. "I agree with Donnie," Raph's eyes darkened with suspicion as he looked over to Geode, who is patiently standing across the room. "Unless one of you two gives me a reason as to why we should not let him stay, I can't just say no. This _is_ a robot we are talking about here. And if I were to guess, it is logic based, not feeling based. We will let him stay on a temporary basis until Master Splinter comes back, then he will have the final say."

Raph and Mikey reluctantly go along with the plan. I can see they are still uneasy about Geode.

"Geode, we are done now." He comes back over to us. "We have come to the decision that you can stay with us if you wish on a temporary basis until Master Splinter returns, he will then make the final decision."

Geode looks at Leonardo with what I have to call a gaping stare. He replies, "That is a very generous offer, Leonardo. However my sensors detect that Raphael's heart rate increased when you asked that question, which indicates that he is not entirely ok with this occurrence. If I were to stay, there would inevitably be heavy conflict between him and I. You three would remain by your brothers side of the conflict, and would force me to leave. By my calculations, this scenario has a 74% chance of occurring. Another 16% are scenarios with the same outcome. That leaves only 10% chance of this being successful, not including what your Master Splinter will decide. So, in the best interests of all, I have to decline." Raph and Mikey gape in surprise, while Leo and I nod at his logic.

I speak first, "I will have to ask, however, to be permitted to erase your memory banks of knowledge of our existence. I will provide you with a small charger. I will also remove your built in weapons," Geode nods in understanding, "This way, there will be nothing to trace back to us. I will also give you a full charge before you go." A grim plan is now formed in my mind, and I am the only one who can pull it off. But I cannot have my brothers discovering it or all will be ruined. I keep my heart rate and breathing in check so as to avoid suspicion.

"I will submit to your precautions, Creator-Donatello." I mentally scold myself at the glee that I feel when he says that, letting nothing of it show on my face.

We decided on having the 'procedure' done on Geode after we were all properly patched up. I hid the remote I made at April's in my bag, and when Mikey was about to ask about it, I gave him a warning glare. That shut him up quite nicely, and with an added squeal to boot. Once everybody was completely patched up and fed, I approach Geode and request starting the procedure.

"When I made you, I made it so that I can work on you while you are charging, so I would like to take that course of action."

"That is logical, and will save time." I plug in all the cords to charge him, and turn on the charging unit. His eye-bulbs change from red to yellow and his body starts to hum. He now cannot move until I unplug him. Looking over to my duffel bag, I sigh and pull out the remote I made at Aprils and plug it into Geode's core, effectively shutting down his systems forever. Now, to ensure his demise, I take out his power cell so that he has no power to run on. Shutting down the charging unit, I leave my lab.

My brothers are sitting on the couch watching some show when I come in. At this moment, I cannot bear to look at them. They expect me to be ever forgiving and kindhearted, but Geode would have posed too much of a threat, so I eliminated him. I ran the calculations in my head, and this was the least likely scenario that he would have come up with. That is why he trusted me so. Geode expected me to follow through on my word, but the reality was different. I saw a threat to my family that I could eliminate, so I took the opportunity. That being said, I really don't know why I'm beating myself up over it. I shut my door, as if I were shutting out the disappointment of the world around me.

**Wrote most of this between two 10 hr car rides **


	8. A Staff

**TMNT – Edge – Ch.8 **

**I'm starting to lose my inspiration a bit, so I'm primarily cranking this chapter out in search of my muse, cuz if I let it go, I'll never find it again… Ever. Help would be appreciated if anyone wants to Beta or contribute helpful ideas or something.**

**Started: 1-2-13 Happy New Year (insert weird acronym or something here)**

**Finished: 1-6-13**

**Word Count: 1,636**

**Mikey's POV is hard for me, so ima avoid doing him for a while. Lataz!**

**Trampoline**

**Leonardo **

Right now I am trying to keep my sanity while being forced to watch some kind of cartoon nonsense of Mikey's. I don't even know what is going on it is so idiotic, but Mikey seems to understand it and be entertained. However Raph appears to be falling asleep despite the chaos. Through my intense boredom, I notice Donnie going quickly to his room. He should be working with Geode, not going to take a nap. There is no real reason why he would go to his room rather than staying in his lab, he practically lives there anyway. Curiosity now eating me, I get up and go check on Donnie. I ignore Mikey's protests, and he gives up on me, refocusing on the television. I stop in front of his door, patched with duct tape from years of explosions tearing holes in it and hasty patching. I hear nothing through the thick concrete walls. Undeterred, I gently knock on the door (Knocking on Donnies door has been known to set off sound or vibration sensitive experiments or inventions, but it hasn't happened for a while. However that has not derailed us from using caution). Hearing a muted 'Come in, Leo' I enter to find Don sitting by his desk, turning over an old screwdriver in his hands.

Something is wrong… I've got no idea what, but a blind man could discern that from his current condition. He may not be as closed off as Raph when it comes to emotions, but he is generally fairly solid emotionally.

Sitting across from him on his bed, I look at his hands. They are slightly trembling. "What happened, Donnie?" I soften my gaze and look him in the eyes. Even his face is shaky.

He responds in a mechanical monotone. "I shut down Geode. The memory is still in the chip, but it will never move again." This shocks me almost as much as his physical malconformities. The pacifist going against his word and more or less killing a trusting being? Absurd. Geode trusted him to do as he said he would, and he blatantly scratched that trust by killing him when his guard was down. My face must be twisted in confusion at this point.

All I can get out in response is "Why?"

He sighs in what sounds to be suspiciously self-depreciating and says, "Even without his memory of us, he would still have been a danger to us. I saw an opportunity to take out a possible threat to us, and I took it… This way, I also don't have to go scrounging about for another suitable AI chip. And the technology won't get into the wrong hands." I simply keep my eyes on his calloused hands, continuously moving.

"Why are you upset about shutting it down, Don?" I make my voice compassionate and patient, while moving my eyes to meet Donnies. His hands stop moving, and he just holds the tool, his grip on it tightening slightly.

"I… It's just that everyone always expects me to be the peace-loving nice guy, and I just wish I really was that guy… I've studied a lot of stuff, and some of that was ways to hurt people. I know even more than Raph in that respect..." While this is not entirely surprising, it still takes my mind a moment to process it. "I see ways to hurt those around me all the time. I see intricate ways to dismember, causing the most pain possible, and know ways to extend that pain… I've read some of the journals of the criminally insane and, regrettably, some of their arguments make logical sense." This really puts me to a stop, and I stare at him incredulously. "I would never go on a killing spree or anything, but some of them took a logical truth and went off with it… I believe this is why I'm so worked up about Geode. It made logical sense for me to, for all intents and purposes, kill him. If I could do it once, who's to say I couldn't do it again, this time to a real person—or people." He clenches his eyes in frustration, the purple of his mask fading to black, matching the mood of the room.

I pull Donnie into an embrace. He limply complies, not reciprocating the action. His normally warm hands are now cool.

My voice is finally able to work, so I speak to him reassuringly, "There was nothing wrong with shutting him down. I understand your actions, and your feelings about doing them." I break the embrace, and move slowly to the door. "You know we'll deal with whatever decision you make regarding your tech, you know that best." I leave the room, closing the door softly.

Mikey notices my reentry despite his previous absorption in his show. He abandons his spot on the couch to Raph, who immediately takes over the rest of the couch, to go to the kitchen. I understand his mindset, and follow him in. This way, Donnie won't be able to hear us talking about him. Mikey is sitting on the counter, swinging his legs reading one of the comic books he has stashed around the house. Typical of him to get distracted by a comic book he has probably already read. I snatch the comic book from him and toss it to the other side of the kitchen with the rest of his kitchen stash.

"So what's up with Donnie?"

I sigh, "He shut down Geode," Mikey's face changes from questioning, to confused, and back to questioning as he digests what I have just said.

"Why would he do that? He said that he was going to take off all his memory of us, and Donnie—Donnie doesn't just go back on something like that. Did he say why?" He hops off of the table and leans against the counter with his arms crossed. His crossed arms reveal his discomfort with Donnie not acting normally.

"Kind of…" Mikey raises an eye ridge, "It's strange. He didn't really come out and say it like he normally does—you know, over examining everything. He just talked. In a bit of a roundabout way, he said that he saw that Geode would still be a threat to us, so he eliminated that threat." Mikey's look of confusion at his big brother's reasoning would have been comedic had I been paying any attention. Right now my thoughts are drawn inwards, trying to force my mind to think like Donatello to know what exactly was going through his head. "I know, right. Completely out of character. Now that I think about it, I don't think Don has ever actually killed anyone. I think he's always just given them a really good whack to the head to knock them out… I can't remember a single time when he actually killed anyone."

This causes Mikey to tilt his head in thought. By this point even he, the lackadaisical, light-filled Michelangelo had killed—Many times, in fact. But he too seemed not able to remember Don actually killing anyone. We hear him break bones and cause severe injuries, but neither of us could remember him actually killing. Neither of us ever thinks about that, so it never occurred to us. Struck with an idea, I leave the kitchen and get in front of the couch, to the side of the tv's so Raph cannot ignore me.

I keep my voice low enough to ensure it wouldn't carry to Donnie's room, but just loud enough to keep Raphael's attention, "Raph, has Donnie ever killed anyone in a fight?"

I see the unvoiced question in his eyes as he answers in an equally soft voice, "One."

"Tell us."

Raph got a bit of a far off look as he sat up from his previous sprawl, and begins speaking even softer than before, "We split up to do a patrol faster and I was with Donnie. We saw a guy torturing someone to death. The guy was really close too. His breathing was fast and there was blood all over the floor and splattered across his torturer. Worst I've ever seen, and that's saying a lot. Well, as soon as he saw them he ran over. When he got there, he first rammed the end of his staff into the guys stomach and I swear I saw blood come up around it. I didn't try and stop him, that man deserved what he got. Once the guy was down and gasping, he rolled onto his side, exposing his back. That was probably the most painful part of that bastards death. Don stabbed his staff through him. I didn't know he had that much power. I guess it's from carrying around all his crap. But once his bo was in the guy, he just picked him up by his neck, with the staff still inside, and pulled it out the other side. There was so much blood, from both the humans… To finish him off, Don rammed him in the eye. By that point, the other human was dead from blood loss. I called in a tip to the police. Don just held out his staff. We had to leave before the police got there, so I had to nearly drag him out. Once we were away, he took me to the shoreline and threw his staff into the water." Raph now had a slightly haunted look about him remembering that night.

I can't get anything out of my mouth, so I look across the room at Mikey, who was behind the couch. As he sits beside Raphael, he mutters "Holy shit." We are silent.

"Yeah." Donatello leaps down from the second floor, probably having come in while Raph was talking.

**~{~}~**

**RANT TIME—Subject matter of the day… Crappy Pop Music**

**I am watching the ballet of Swan Lake on Youtube while writing the first part of this. Wherever did we go wrong in our music to come out with all this pop (Justin Bieber, Lady GaGa, Ke$ha, etc.) crap! Do people simply no longer appreciate the brilliance and beauty of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Ferling, and all of the other brilliant composers throughout history?! It is simply insane the crap music that is being produced today. And what is worse… This crap music is **_**popular**_**! People cannot tell whether a saxophone is a brass or woodwind 'Because it's made of metal'! Current pop music hardly qualifies as music. Contrary to popular belief, you **_**do not**_** need words to convey deep thought and emotion. You can tell a story just as well through dance and music. **

'**I don't know what's going on if they don't say anything' – Do you REALLY **_**always**_** listen to the words and sometimes never just listen to the instrumentals behind it? Listen to the karaoke version of something… Go ahead, I know you can get onto youtube if you're on ff… now look up the karaoke version of some song you've never heard of, listen to it, and I bet you like the instrumental version too. **

'**Band people are all lonely weirdos' – I'll have you know that I am a band person (first chair flute for 4 yrs thank you very much) and the band people are some of the awesomest people I have ever met. Where else can you get a bus of people singing along to Queens 'Bohemian Rhapsody' on the way to a competition, or laugh your spleen off trying to see what instruments can fit into the bell of a tuba while someone else is on top of a table proclaiming mastery of the world or some such nonsense. **

**THIS is good music **

** watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_NfxSVw3KQY**

_**Badda **__**BOOM**_


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